Resource Blog #5

A certain section section stood out to me on the reading (Subjects Matter, 30). There is a list presented of eight thinking strategies that effective readers perform although I will only list a few. First, to visualize. Visualizing is arguably the most important strategy for meaningful reading. Too often I skim through text, and with no visualization, I forget the material. A bit off topic, but the same goes for language learning. One must associate certain words with pictures in order for these words to stick in his or her's long-term memory. Connecting with the text can go hand in hand with visualization, but offers a more personal feel for the reading. Students will have all sorts of different experiences and background knowledge over certain topics. With connection, texts can provide meaning to the students. Inferring is a crucial step in effective reading. This might be tougher to teach kids because inferring comes from prior knowledge or experiences. But based off of the level I will be teaching, (7th-8th grade hopefully) the students might be able to take advantage of that. How could I use this technique to demonstrate in a class setting? In particular, I took interest in Professor Nick's way of doing so. After presenting us with an obscure paragraph from Subjects Matter, he asked us a series of questions that we were all able to dissect based off of inferring from certain key words. Very importantly, I would like to teach my students the art of self-monitoring. Honestly, I don't even believe that I touched up on this skill throughout grade school. I never had a teacher who had brought it up. If I was confused, then a teacher or student might have attended to my need. But I never was able to recognize it, and then use the other steps to dig my way out of it. That's a skill I will implement in my future classroom. To encourage confusion, to be open to frustration, so then we as a class can back out of it and utilize the other strategies in effective reading. (348)